


In Which the Intern is a Demon

by Lady_Layla



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Accidental Demon Summoning, Alternate Universe, BAMF Darcy Lewis, But that's for smut, Darcy is a half demon, Demon Darcy Lewis, F/M, Female Friendship, I want to tag, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis Friendship, Jane and Darcy move in with the Avengers, Platonic Relationship, Plot What Plot, Slow Burn, Suuuuuper slow, and I just don't have a plot for this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-20 17:26:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 17,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14898857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Layla/pseuds/Lady_Layla
Summary: Dr. Jane Foster accidentally summons a Demon.Who decides to stick around.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> An expanded version of Chapter 27 of the Chronicles of Darcy Lewis

"I'm sorry, you're a what?" Jane Foster asked as she took stock of the other woman standing in front of her. She was only a few inches shorter than Jane and wearing a knit sweater with matching cap that marked her as out of place in the heat of New Mexico.

The woman flicked her eyes up at Jane before returning them to the dirt covered ground.

"I'm a demon...a half-demon if you'd like to get technical."

"That's insane."

"Not as insane as the fact that you summoned me accidentally, by drawing astrological symbols on the ground and singing a bunch of random Latin words."

Jane fought the blush she felt rising in her cheeks. "My mother made me take Latin. I liked the way some of the words sounded."

"Right, so you made up a song to help you concentrate."

After a few more minutes of silence, the half-demon looked up at Jane and straightened. "Well, now that I'm here, Darcy Lewis at your service." She swept Jane a mocking bow.

"What is it you require of me?"

"What?" Jane blinked, causing Darcy to sigh.

"You're not really the fairy-tale, fantasy type are you? You drew my symbol and summoned me, I'm currently trapped in the circle until I fulfill a requirement or you set me free."

"And when does my soul get taken?"

The half-demon...Darcy, smirked and crossed her arms. "So, you're not as out of the loop as I'd thought. Well, I'll do you a solid for free. I don't actually collect souls. That's a lower-level type of thing. I tend to take things I find interesting, like the memory of your birthday party when you turned five, or your first year of college, or I can make a copy of your memories of all of your works in Astrophysics."

Jane found herself gaping at the...at Darcy before she shook her head slowly.

"I-uh. What if I don't require anything?"

"Then, you just smudge the dirt here and I'll be on my way, after I collect my fee."

"You get something for just showing up?"

Darcy smirked again as she nodded.

"Fine...I need...I need..." She let her mind drift, thinking over all of the possibilities when she realized she was muttering out loud. "I really need an intern to help me figure out what I need."

Darcy cackled. "Done. I'll get you your intern and since it's been somewhere around 500 years since I've been summoned to Earth, I'll even let you get a say in what kind of payment I'll take."

"You mean you won't take it now?"

"No, I'll take my payment when you no longer need an intern."

The wind around them picked up suddenly, whipping the sand and dirt into a small tornado and smudging the lines Jane had drawn in the sand. When she finally uncovered her eyes the half-demon was gone and she was left wondering if it had all been a dream.

* * *

Three days later Jane realized it wasn't in fact a dream when she was walking back to the car dealership slash lab that she'd taken over and saw the half-demon, Darcy, slouching against the door. The other woman...demon?...looked up when she heard Jane approaching and made a face.

"Did you know you have some kind of a reputation?" Darcy asked as Jane shifted the bag of groceries to one arm and unlocked the door.

Jane winced a little and nodded. "I've heard some of the things that have been going around."

"Well, thanks to that little reputation, no one wants to be your intern."

"Wait, so does that mean you can't fulfill your end of the deal and I can keep my soul?"

Darcy followed Jane into the dealership's little kitchenette and sighed. "Dude, enough with the soul business, I don't want your soul. And no. I found you an intern."

Shutting the door of the fridge, Jane turned to look at Darcy and frown. "Who?"

"Ta-da!" Darcy sang out as she motioned to herself before doing jazz hands.

"You?"

"Me."

"What do you know about astrophysics?"

"Precisely nothing. But, I'm a quick study, I can cook real food," she broke off to squint at the stacks of microwave food. "I can drive that RV you've got out front and I'm good with machines."

"How good."

"It's like magic." 

Jane wondered if she imagined the red flash across Darcy's eyes as Jane tilted her head up to stare at the ceiling. After a few minutes of silence she sighed and looked back to Darcy.

"Okay fine. You've got the job."

"Awesome! You won't regret it boss lady."

"I think it’s too late for that."

* * *

 "Shit." Darcy breathed as she watched Thor and his friends take off for Asgard.

"Yeah." Jane agreed.

"Hey uh Jane?"

"Yeah, Darce?"

"That's the most exciting thing that's happened to me in centuries. Can I stay on as your intern for a while?"

Jane tore her attention from the sky and looked over at her friend. Huh. She had a half-demon friend. Neat.

"Of course you can. Who else is going to fry the spooky government listening devices, annoy the jack-booted thugs, and protect me?"

Darcy grinned as Jane leaned over and bumped their shoulders together.

"And Jane."

"Mhmm?"

"I think just being friends with you might be enough payment for your contract."

"Ohhh I think those might be feelings. Let's go get some tequila and repress those."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team finds out Darcy is a demon.

“Do you regret staying on as my intern now?” Jane asks as she and Darcy are once again left alone after an alien invasion.

Darcy just grins at her before narrowing her eyes at the approaching man in the suit. This guy turns out to be not-Shield, he turns out to be from Stark Industries and he has a job letter for Jane.

The offer includes space for an assistant and when they’re back at Jane’s mom’s flat Darcy waves the letter.

“We’re taking this one Janey, I’ve got a good feeling about this.”

Jane squints at the letter as it blurs past her face and frowns. “Well, I’d really like to read over the whole contract.”

“You’ll have time on the plane.”

“There’s a plane?”

“By plane I mean a private Stark Jet that we will have all to ourselves”

Jane finally returns Darcy’s grin. “That sounds like something I might enjoy.” she says as nonchalantly as she can manage.

* * *

Darcy Lewis, half-demon and intern extraordinaire, really freaking loves living with superheros. She’s got her own suite in the newly named Avengers Tower with three bedrooms. That’s enough to have one as storage for all of the junk she’s bargained for over the years and have an extra guest room that she’ll probably never need.

She also has a brand new paying job!

(Jane says her excitement about it makes her sound very human despite the fact that Darcy has literal bricks of gold and probably doesn’t need a human job.)

Jarvis had been keeping tabs on them after the move to the Tower and she hadn’t even been there a month before Pepper Goddamn Potts had offered her a job using her scientist wrangling skills on Jane, Tony, and Bruce.

Best. Job. Ever.

(Mostly. Tony is more of a pain in the ass than she thought, but to be fair so is Darcy and she only has to threaten to teleport him to the ass end of space once a week max.)

Of course Tony suddenly discovering his mother hen tendencies means that it doesn’t take her too long to meet the rest of the Avengers.

Captain America is the most adorable troll she’s ever met and she wants to put him in her pocket forever. (You can’t actually keep Captain America in a pocket dimension Darcy!)

Bruce she knows from working in the labs.

Clint (jack booted thug from New Mexico!) is the best for pranks and going out on food tours of the city when Jane is refusing to leave the lab.

The Black Widow takes a lot longer to warm up to Darcy, which is totally understandable considering her past (that Darcy knows in full because hacking is a great way to pass the time). Eventually, Natasha caves. Probably because Darcy tends to forget that personal space is a thing (half-demon) and Darcy is all about cuddling with a stunning redhead who never got proper snuggles. She’s just making up for lost time.

They make it an entire eight months before anyone other than Jane and Thor find out Darcy is a demon, which is honestly a record because if they don’t know when she shows up they know really soon after.

What happens is that the team have been called away on a mission leaving Darcy, Jane, and Pepper to watch the live news coverage in the Penthouse.

Suddenly, the news caster is drown out by the sound of Clint’s voice even though Darcy knows he’s several states away.

“Fuck, I’d do anything not to bleed out before my evac gets here.” Clint mutters in response to the status update query Cap poses on their new communication link.

“Anything?”

Darcy winces a little bit at the pained yelp Clint makes as he jumps in surprise at her sudden appearance.

“Holy fucking shit, ow. How did you get here Lewis? What the hell are you even doing here? Natasha’s going to kill me, the fight isn’t even over yet.”

She waves his concerns away and looks at his hand pressing down on the wound that’s still bleeding. “Anything?” She repeats.

“Uh, yeah probably anything?” It’s more of a question than a statement, but Darcy shrugs and counts it.

Clint looks at her weird as she holds out a hand that he slowly takes with his free one. They haven’t even finished the motion of shaking before he notices the pain is gone. His hand is still covered in blood and his shirt still has a hole in it, but there’s nothing underneath where the bullet hit.

“What the fuuuuck?” He breathes out as he pushes himself fully upright. The suspiciously silent comm crackles to life at the same moment he looks up and notices Darcy isn’t there anymore.

“Hawkeye, did you say something about Lewis being with you?” Cap asks at the same time as Nat’s voice come through.

“Iron Man will be with you in less than four minutes.”

Clint can see his rescue, the one he doesn’t need anymore because there’s no bullet wound, and looks around again for Darcy.

* * *

 

Darcy isn’t even a little surprised when there’s a crowd of freshly showered and cleaned superheros waiting for her and Jane in the communal kitchen area.

“They’re just missing the intervention banner.” She whispers to Jane, who claps a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing in the face of such seriousness and heads over to join Thor in leaning against the counter top on the other side of the room.

“’Sup guys?”

“I really wanted to ask if I was hallucinating our chat on the rooftop earlier, but since I distinctly remember getting shot and now I’m bullet and bullet hole free I’m going to assume it was not a hallucination.”

“You’re welcome.”

Clint blanches and Darcy is pretty sure he thought she was going to deny being on the roof with him. There are mixed reactions from the rest of the team too.

“Also, it’s time to complete your contract with payment due for services rendered.”

Natasha makes a scary sounding noise at her, but Clint puts his hand on her arm and looks at Darcy before taking a deep breath.

“And what exactly do you want?”

She grins at him. “I want to call dibs on you for security. Jane and I want to go on a little trip to get more accurate data readings but, Thor is getting ready to pop home for a little while I want you to be our escort.”

Clint’s jaw drops and the corner of Nat’s eyes crinkle in the way that Darcy’s learned means she’s confused.

“You couldn’t have just asked?”

Darcy shrugs. She totally could have, but she needed a payment to complete the contract. Plus she’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have given her partial custody of Lucky.

“Darce, I think we,” Steve motions to the group at large, “Would really like to know what’s going on here.”

“I’m a half-demon. I was summoned to Earth a few years ago, made a deal, and decided to stick around.”

“A demon?”

“Half-demon.”

“And you don’t want my soul?” Clint finally manages to sputter out. Darcy lets her head drop onto the counter with a small thud and grumbles something about ‘Fucking Hollywood’ for a minute before she looks back up.

“No. I don’t want your soul, I don’t want anyone’s soul. I mean honestly, what would I even do with a soul? They’re not toys, no one really wants to collect them all.”

“So uh, what exactly are you doing here?”

Darcy squints at Clint and says slowly, “Where Jane goes, so goes my nation.” It’s her usual response when asked why she’s in the Tower at all.

“I meant, why are you here on Earth.”

“Jane.”

“Jane summoned you?”

“Yep. On accident.”

“Jane summoned you on accident?” Natasha asks as one of her eyebrows raises skeptically, which causes Darcy to launch into the story of Jane’s summoning and subsequent events (including her hacking of the Shield database to create a life for herself and the DMV for Thor) that led her to right now.

Jane attempts to interject explanations that make her sound a little less like a mad scientist and Thor supplies information he finds helpful.

When they’re done there’s a few minutes of silence before Darcy finally notices Tony. He’s been silent this entire time, only so he wouldn’t draw attention to himself as he sidled in her direction.

“Stark I swear to god if you poke me with anything I’m going to shove you in the guest closet.”

Tony freezes with his arm extended and Jane misinterprets his look because she blurts, “She wouldn’t really. Darcy just likes to use it as a threat.”

Several pairs of eyes turn to her and it’s Jane’s turn to wince at their expressions.

“I don’t think they knew the Lady Darcy has a portal to another place hiding in her closet.” Thor whispers.

Loud enough for everyone to hear.

“You’ve got a what-now in my Tower?”

“There’s a portal to Hell in my closet. I like to go home and visit sometimes.”

“This I need to see.” Tony says and leads the way out with Jane close behind trying to explain how she thinks Darcy’s portal works. Everyone else follows and Darcy lets her head fall onto her arms again.

“If I may, Miss Lewis, that seems to have gone rather well.” Jarvis says and she sticks her arm out to give him a thumbs up.

Of course Jarvis knows, he has eyes everywhere, literally, and he’s seen Darcy walk into her closet and her vitals disappear from the Tower. It took a lot of convincing on her and Jane’s part, but once she managed to get him to believe she didn’t want to hurt ANYONE in the building, he had agreed to keep her secret.

“I also might suggest you follow them. Sir is asking about going through the portal.”

Darcy groans and heads back towards her room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a quick chapter. I had most of it written but after all the great comments I got on the last one I decided to edit it a little and post. Hope you enjoyed reading!


	3. Chapter 3

After Darcy convinces Tony that he can't go into her portal to hell and come back without losing his soul-

(I thought you didn't want souls?!)

without having his soul detach from his body and just stay in hell, there's a few days where Darcy is left mostly alone with Jane and Thor.

It's probably the quietest time in the Tower since they moved in, but Thor tells her not to worry, that everyone is just trying to come to terms with who she is. He also assures her that he has vouched for her character and has insisted that she isn't going to hurt any of them.

Everything seems to smooth out when Steve and Natasha migrate to DC for a long term mission. Natasha just isn't sure how to react now that her world view of Darcy being a civilian she could take down if needed has turned into knowing there's pretty much nothing she can do if Darcy decides to go rogue.

Steve's issues are apparently more of a religious nature. At least according to Clint on one of their outings into the city. He, Tony, and Bruce seem to have gotten over the news the quickest although they do make her come to dinner one night (with Thor and Jane, of course) and tell them about her powers.

"Well, I can't die. I had a human body once and it died, then I became a demon."

"Funny thing is a ton of stories are usually about women getting knocked up by demons and left to raise the kid. My mom was the demon actually and they had shared custody."

"I can't do massive scale stuff, like there's no granting world peace. I think my most common deals are for power, money, beauty, and I can extend a life-span, but I can't make other people immortal."

"Can you bring people back from the dead?" 

Everyone turns surprised faces to Bruce, who's been mostly silent.

"No. I mean I can temporarily drag their soul back up from hell, but I can't put it back into a body. I also can't keep someone from dying."

Clint protests a little and she smiles at him.

"I mean if someone is closer to living than dying I can heal them, but there's a point where I can't really do anything to help."

After that dinner, things go back to as normal as they can be. Darcy returns to work in the labs, spends several days debating the point of having a second portal to hell in the janitor's closet (FOR SCIENCE DARCY), and after a few weeks in DC Steve finally seems to be coming around.

It seems he's made a new friend and sometimes he'll ask Darcy to explain a missed joke or a meme because Natasha doesn't always get them either and half of Darcy's life is spent on the internet.

It takes a few more weeks, but they start to return to their previous level of friendship and she wonders if his religious crisis is over. She's too nice to ask though, religion can be a very personal thing.

Apparently, Steve's new friend has also been encouraging him to be more of his true self.

In a word. Troll.

Troll Steve is quickly becoming her favorite because people (Tony) tend to forget that Steve isn’t actually a living, breathing, advertisement for “the best of the 40s and 50s”. He’s actually a little shit who once he has a grasp of things, welds memes like a weapon and enjoys pretending he can’t work his smartphone to see how many times he can have Tony explain it too him (11 times so far).

The first time he tells her about calling Tony to have him explain “The Facebook and The Twitter” she spits her coffee out right onto one of Jane’s machines. Jane forgives her after she puts Steve on speaker phone so he can re-tell the story. And after she fixes the bit that’s now malfunctioning because of liquid.

(Jane still insists that she can't keep Troll Steve in a pocket dimension, which laaaame.)

Everything seems to be going really well.

 

Until it isn’t.

 

It’s Sam who manages to give her a quick call to let her know that shit is going DOWN at Shield who’ve turned out to be HYDRA and suddenly Darcy is ridiculously busy.

Someone (Natasha she's pretty sure and she's not sure how she feels about the knowledge) has leaked the information about her being a demon, because she's working in the labs with Jane when she feels it, something she hasn't felt for a few years now. The tugging in her chest that mean someone's drawn her sigil and is summoning her.

"Jane!"

Usually, it's hard to get her friend's attention while she's working, but Darcy's tone must be urgent enough because Jane's head snaps up.

"I'm being summoned."

"What?! By who?"

Darcy closes her eyes and she can see the woman who's almost finished chanting. Quickly, she grabs her phone, pulling up a picture Steve had sent and zooming in on the woman in the background who had been walking away at the time. She tosses the phone to Jane.

"That's her. If I'm not back in an hour or two tell Tony."

Jane nods and Darcy lets herself be pulled away.

* * *

When she opens her eyes again, Darcy finds she's in what looks like a hospital room.

With no windows.

"You summoned me?"

The older woman tries to level a glare at Darcy, but it falls flat as it meets the literal fire that's dancing in the back of Darcy's eyes.

"Darcy Lewis?"

"Ding, ding you're a winner." Darcy answers in a flat tone.

"I want to make a deal."

"Yeah obviously. What do you want?"

"I need you to save him."

The woman finally moves and Darcy can see the man laying in the bed that she'd been blocking view of. He's hooked up to tubes and wire and all sorts of other stuff.

"What makes you  think I can do that?"

The other woman narrows her eyes. "You're a demon."

Darcy shrugs and doesn't correct her. "Yeah, demon. I'm not a god. If he's too far gone, I can't do shit. And you'll still owe me for showing up."

"Fine, find out if you can fix him."

Darcy's laugh isn't even remotely close to anything nice.

"You drew the circle all the way over here. I can't do shit from here. You have to let me out."

"How do I know you'll stay?"

"You don't."

They stare each other down for less than a minute before the other woman sighs and walks over to smudge the circle with her foot.

Darcy thinks about getting the hell out of here, but decides against it as she walks over to the bed.

She knows exactly who's laying in it now. Oh, she's heard so many things about Nicholas Fury and she grins something sharp with too many teeth before resting her hand on his chest.

He's pretty gone, but just a little, tiny bit closer to life than death. She can work with this.

"I can do it."

"Then do it."

"You think snapping at me will do anything? I want my payment agreed upon first."

"Fine. What do you want?"

"A favor. One from you and him."

Darcy smiles again at the look on the other woman's face.

"Don't worry, I'm almost positive it will be legal, I won't use it to help any bad guys out, or go against any ethics you two manage to scrape together."

There's another minute of silence.

"Done."

Darcy sticks out her hand and the other woman strides back across the room to grasp it quickly. Then, Darcy turns to the man in the bed, tilts his head, and breathes into his face.

She steps back.

"That's it?"

Suddenly, the machines start going crazy and Fury takes a deep breath only to start coughing.

"Don't worry, I'll find you to come collect, Maria Hill." Darcy says as the other woman flings open the door to call for doctor's.

Nick Fury's eyes open meeting those of Darcy Lewis as she shimmers and vanishes from view. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this update!! I wrote half at work and then as I sat down this morning I got super inspired. I've also decided that this will end up being a ship fic and I think I know who Darcy will be paired with, and I'm trying to decide if I should edit the tags.


	4. Chapter 4

Darcy isn't surprised to get a phone call after the fall of Shield.

She _is_ surprised that the phone call comes three whole months after instead of like a week or two. She's also surprised that the person on the other end of the phone turns out to be not Steve, but Sam.

"I think the fall off that helicarrier might have done some actual damage." Sam says.

"Really?"

"He's been trying to look up some weird diagram and Latin and muttering about Darcy. I just decided to call you and see if you knew what is his deal is."

"Wow, he's going all formal. Neat. Where are you guys?"

“Hotel.”

“Alone?”

There’s a slight hesitation on the other end, because she and Sam might be sort of texting buddies, he's never met her and she understands his suspicion.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Darcy hangs up on Sam, shoots off a quick text to Jane, and concentrates on Steve.

A few minutes later she’s ducking a lamp that’s being thrown at her from across a dingy motel room.

“Jesus Christ, that almost hit me!”

“Darcy?”

“Steve.”

“What the fuck is going on? Did you just appear in the middle of the room?”

“You must be Sam.”

She’s not offended when he doesn’t cross the room to shake her hand.

“Yep, I’m Darcy.” She wiggles her fingers at him before letting the hand drop.

“Are you a mutant?”

“Demon. Half-Demon. Whateves.”

“What.”

Darcy opens her mouth, but apparently Steve can’t keep take the banter any more because he strides over to stand in front of her.

“I was going to summon you.”

Snorting she drops onto the couch. “I guessed as much.”

Steve’s face looks pained as he speaks. “Darcy, I need a favor. Something I’d give anything for.”

Sam makes his way over and claps a hand on Steve’s shoulder as Darcy grins at them in a way that makes Sam’s insides cold. Sure, he’s heard bits about Darcy from Steve and Natasha (they have vastly different feelings about her, but they both seem to like her for the most part) and they've been texting back and forth or in group texts with Steve, but no one had told him Darcy's a demon.

“Steve. You might wanna reconsider.”

Darcy narrows her eyes at him, “Look from our talks and what Steve has told me you seem pretty cool but, if the next words out of your mouth have anything to do with me taking Steve’s soul, I’m out of here.”

Sam looks surprised at her announcement and Steve turns to him with _those_ eyes. He throws his hands up in resignation and falls onto the chair opposite Darcy.

“Darcy,” Steve starts, turning his pitiful look her way. “I’d do anything if you bring Bucky back.”

The grin doesn’t slip from her face as she replies, “Sorry, Steve-O. No can do.” and watches his mouth fall open.

“What?”

“I can’t help you." She says slowly and clearly. "You were beat to the punch."

“WHAT?” He sounds both angry and pained and looks a little constipated.

“Your bestest pal in the whole wide world? Yeah, he beat you to the punch. Summoned me weeks ago.”

"What?" This time it's said softer as Steve sinks to sit on the edge of the table.

* * *

_Three weeks after the fall of Shield Darcy feels the tugging in her chest again.  
_

_It's almost midnight and just as she can feel the sigil being finished, she tells Jarvis that she's going out and if she's not back in a few hours to let Jane and Thor know.  
_

"What do you mean by 'again'?"

"Shut up Steve I'm telling a story. Also, noneya."

_As the room forms around her, Darcy wonders if she should have changed out of her sweats, but she shrugs and looks around._

_"Oh goody. A creepy, old warehouse, just where I've always wanted to be summoned because cliches don't mean a damn thing."_

_There's a sound off to her right and she waits as a figure sort of materializes out of the shadows._

_"Fuck. I need to learn how to do that. Dramatic entrances are very in right now."_

_The man makes a noise that she's pretty sure is a snort, but doesn't say anything. Just takes his time walking around the circle that she's bound in._

_Welp, she can tell this is going to take a while so she sits._

_And she's right. The man spends another half an hour circling and watching her before he finally stops across the circle from her._

_"Darcy Lewis. Half-demon. At your service."_

_"So, it's true? You are what they say." He replies in Russian._

_"They? Do you mean the collective They or do you mean a red-head and an idiot who can't keep their mouths shut?" Is falteringly answered back in the same language. Damn, she really needs to brush up on her Russian and she wonders what other languages he speaks that she doesn't know. Probably a lot.  
_

"Seriously, Barnes knew you were a demon but no one felt like telling me?"

_He ignores the question. "I need something."_

_"That's what I'm here for. It will cost."_

_"It always does."_

_Darcy grimaces and is also thankful he doesn't mention souls (She needs her own PR person, seriously fuck Hollywood)._

_"What do you want?"_

_"Time."_

_"It seems like you already have a lot of that."_

_"I want time to figure out what I am."_

_"Who you are." She says and ignores how he flinches when she says it._

_"I don't know much, other than that he...He will try and get me back and I cannot."_

_"You don't want to go back?"_

_"Yes, but not yet. It's too much, it's too soon, only two weeks and it's not safe. I am not safe."_

_The grin that Darcy gives the man as she stands up reminds him of another woman who smiled like a shark on the trail of blood._

_"James Buchanan Barnes, I offer you the time you seek."_

_The Winter Soldier flinches again at the name she uses, but he crosses the circle to shake her hand anyway._

_"You won't be found by anyone until you want to be found." She says, this time her smile is soft and a little sad. "That part is my gift to you._

* * *

"What was your payment?" Sam asks because Steve can't.

Darcy smiles again, the same sad smile of a being who understands tragedy.

"I took the blocks that were making him forget and I took anything that could make him forget again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congrats to the people who guessed Darcy/Bucky as the ship! You're right. I sort of figured out the last chapter what pairing I wanted. I also feel like this started out as light hearted and funny then got really angsty there at the end, so sorry about that.
> 
> Also, I know three weeks might not have been enough time for Bucky to get into the headspace of summoning Darcy, but we're going to ignore that because I'm winging the hell out of this fic. It really wasn't supposed to be more than one expanded chapter, but here we are. Hope you all enjoyed it!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who pointed out that chapter 4 was posted twice. I have no idea at all how that happened, but I removed it and this is the newest chapter!
> 
> I noticed that for some reason things are posting multiple times on Ao3 today so maybe it's a site glitch?

Steve pretty much ignores everything Darcy said about Bucky wanting his space, and Darcy herself, and starts planning to go after Bucky anyway.

She can't do much of anything to stop him anyway and she ignores the little sting that his actions are causing. Sam is nice enough to keep her updated and he, at least, thinks she did the right thing.

"Barnes should be able to choose for himself. He hasn't had much opportunity over the years. Steve will come around."

The word _probably_ is hanging off the end of the sentence, but he doesn't say it and Darcy ignores that too.

"Thanks Sam."

Darcy continues on in the Tower, mostly as usual, with the added bonus (?) that Natasha seems to have gotten over her issues about Darcy and has been hanging around more.

"So." Nat is sitting on the side of Darcy's desk, her legs swinging back and forth as she reads over something on her tablet. The single word causes Darcy to look up from her work on deciphering Jane's chicken scratch and writing it out again for Jarvis to be able to scan.

"Why did you decide that you and Jane shouldn't pursue the readings she was getting around London?"

"Dude. That was a while ago."

"Mmm."

"Okay, well humans get weird vibes and stuff like that all the time right? When there's something I need to stay away from I get a similar sense, hence sending Thor and having him find some creepy red mist thing that Asgard was able to take care of with minimal clean-up needed from Shield after only a few aliens tried to invade."

Natasha finally looks up from her tablet.

"Did you know exactly what that mist was?"

"I had an idea." Darcy waves her hand in a vague motion.

"Mmm."

Darcy is fine to just sit in silence, but of course it wouldn't be home to Tony Stark if silence was common.

Jane comes hurrying in, gasping a little for breath, and grabs Darcy's shoulders.

"Why---wait." She pants leaning over to catch her breath for a second. "Why does Tony get to send a drone through your portal and I can't send anything?"

"Oh for the love of..." Darcy pushes Jane gently to the side and stands up. "He can't and you can't."

She rolls her eyes at Natasha as she jogs out into the hall to get to her room and stop Tony.

Natasha looks at Jane thoughtfully for a few minutes before she speaks, "Why exactly do you want to send something through Darcy's portal."

"Because it's a portal to another dimension. We want to know how exactly souls go there after death and what it's like for them."

"I would assume not pleasant."

Jane looks surprised, before she laughs. "I forgot you and Steve were in DC for the talk about Hell. It turns out that ALL souls go there after death and it's not really a heaven or hell, just another plane of existence. Darcy's race apparently lived there for a while before people humans just started showing up, there are some that call themselves demons and some call themselves angels and the plane Heaven. They mostly picked it up from humans."

"So there's no real concern about punishment or rewards based on how you lived you life?"

Jane makes a face. "Darcy can explain it better, but there are separate places for people who are really evil or really good. Why the sudden interest?"

"I have missed a lot and I'm a spy. I like to know things." Natasha says as she slides off the desk and leaves the lab.

Darcy comes back a few minutes later and sends Jane a look. "Seriously, you guys need to give the portal thing a rest or I'm going to have to move it somewhere you can't find it."

Jane ignores her and says, "Want to take the rest of the day off? I really want to grab lunch at that place Pepper was telling us about the other day."

* * *

"It feels like we're always a step behind him and it's driving Steve nuts." Sam complains to Darcy three months later. They're having lunch outside of a cafe now that he and Steve have come back to New York to regroup. Well, Steve calls it regrouping, Sam calls it Steve bullying Tony into using Jarvis and his fancy tech to look for Barnes.

"It's more like five steps." A new voice says as a man in a jacket and ball cap drops down into the empty chair next to Sam.

Sam jumps a little bit, takes a good look at the guy, and groans letting his head fall into his hands.

Darcy just grins.

"Hey there. Looking a little bit better, you planning on coming in?"

Barnes returns her smile, it's both pained and adorable. "Nah, not yet. I've still got some stuff to take care of. Just wanted to give something to Steve 2.0 over here."

Sam groans again, but he reaches out to take the disk being offered to him.

Standing, Barnes claps him on the shoulder, sends Darcy a wink and melts back into the crowd.

"Man. How the hell am I supposed to tell Captain Puppy Dog eyes that his best friend just showed up to hand off intel and I didn't keep him around?"

"I wouldn't worry too much about telling him. I'm sure he knows by now."

"Huh?"

"Tony's been running facial recognition software and there's a camera over there. Barnes looked right at it. I'm sure he's on the way."

Sure enough not even ten minutes later Darcy can see Steve practically sprinting up the sidewalk towards them and Darcy's sure she can see cartoon smoke rising as he skids to a stop beside them.

"Sam, where's Bucky? We just saw him here with you guys."

With a wink, Darcy leaves Sam to deal with explaining the situation to Steve and decides to take a shopping detour on her way back to the Tower, which turns out to not be the best idea she's ever had.

Sure, she scores a few new shirts and a cute summer dress, but by the time she's made it back it seems like there's a stand-off going on in the common room.

"What's going on?"

"I feel like I shouldn't tell you since you abandoned me to Steve... but what was on that disk... it's not good." Despite the attempt at humor, Sam looks pretty grim.

"Turns out Barnes killed Howard and Maria Stark." Clint says as he comes up on her left.

Sam shoots him a look, but nods. "Yeah. Tony's a little more than pissed off, halfway through a bottle, and threatening to rip Barnes in half."

"Damnit. Keep them both here, no matter what." She grabs her bags and heads back to her room. Dumping the bags on the bed, Darcy faces her guestroom closet, takes a few breaths, rolls her shoulders and opens the door to step through the portal.

In the common room, the others have taken Darcy words to heart. Thor has his arms wrapped around Steve with Clint and Sam trying to keep Tony from leaving or summoning the Suit when they hear a bang from the pantry.

The door flies open and everyone is staring as Darcy steps out of it, the pantry behind her no longer filled with food, but a swirling vortex.

"Lewis, now's not the time." Tony snaps but when he tries to turn he finds he can't.

"Can't make a little time for your old man then, Tony?" Howard Stark says as he steps forward from the portal, reaching back to escort his wife out as well.

Darcy motions Thor to let Steve go and says to the rest of the group, "We should let Steve and Tony have a chat in private. You have fifteen minutes." She says the last part to the two souls who are looking between their son and Steve.

Howard opens his mouth, but it's covered quickly by his wife, who smiles at Darcy. "Fifteen minutes is more than we ever thought we'd have."


	6. Chapter 6

When the fifteen minutes are up Darcy leads the rest of the group (now including Pepper) back into the kitchen.

Steve is sitting in a chair, his grip making the back of it creak a little ominously, while Tony and his father are clustered together in the corner.

They both look up quickly when everyone enters and Howard breaks into a grin when he spots Pepper. He waggles his eyebrows at Tony, who looks torn between mortified and amused, before opening his mouth.

The room as a whole is saved once again as Maria covers her husband's mouth and gives him a look. Howard frowns for just a second before shrugging at his wife and she lets her hand drop.

"Miss Lewis, we very much appreciate this opportunity to see our son again."

Darcy just shrugs at them, a little uncomfortable with all of the emotions going on. Maria takes a minute to walk over to Pepper and give her a hug, there's a whispered conversation between them that has a faint color rising on Pepper's cheeks.

Meanwhile, Howard has been edging his way towards where Bruce is sitting at the edge of the kitchen as it meets the living room with Clint and Natasha He's got his eyes on Bruce, who looks a little distressed that yet another Stark has taken interest.

"Nope."

Darcy jumps to block his path and bodily pushes him in the direction of his wife, who is now standing back by the pantry door. "Show's over, let's go folks. Fifteen minutes are way up and if I don't get you back in time...well. No one wants to have to deal with that aftermath."

She practically shoves the older Starks through the portal and turns to glare at Tony before she goes. "This won't be here after I shut the door and Jarvis has my room locked up, so no funny ideas."

Tony raises his hands and takes a step backwards towards Pepper.

Glaring at him for a minute longer, Darcy finally turns and lets the door swing shut behind her.

The silence lasts for a millisecond longer before almost everyone bursts into speech. Thor is asking Tony what it was like to see his parents again and musing if Darcy has access to Valhalla as well, there are friends in those Halls he would love to speak with again.

Sam has moved over to Steve and placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. "You okay man? You're going to break that chair soon if you don't let up on it."

He stands looking at Steve, who still won't speak, for a minute before turning to give a concerned glance to Natasha. She makes her way over and after a minute of attempted conversation, she suddenly pulls a small knife out of nowhere and gives Steve a little jab in the hand.

Steve's head finally jerks up as he lets go of the chair and draws his hand closer. "What the hell, Nat?"

"You were going to break the chair while you were so focused on doing a statue impersonation." She says flipping the knife so she can return it to where ever she pulled it from.

"So what happened?"

"Howard knew." Steve manages to choke out, a little louder than intended, interrupting whatever animated thing Tony had been telling Pepper,  Bruce and Thor.

"Knew what?"

Steve just shakes his head.

Tony snorts, rolls his eyes, and finishes saying what Steve can't.

"Shield had heard of the Winter Soldier. They had a file on him even back then and when he came after my parents, Howard wasn't surprised. He'd been piecing the Soldier's timeline together in private and he had an idea of who he really was."

"Is that what's got you worked up over there?" Sam asks Steve, who hasn't looked up once.

"No," Tony rolls his eyes again, looking a little annoyed. "He looks like that because Howard said he's forgiven Barnes and I should too. Because since I'm not the one who's dead, my opinion isn't the one that matters."

Any further conversation on the topic is halted as Darcy returns to the room. She heads straight for Tony and drops a bag at his feet.

"Dude, did you really think I wouldn't check Howard's pockets?"

Tony grins at her. "Worth a shot."

"Also your mom emptied her pockets voluntarily."

Tony looks a little disappointed as he pokes at the bag with his shoe.

"Alright, well... look, Lewis."

Darcy cuts him off with a raised hand.

"Yeah, feelings, thanks, emotions. Got it. I'm going to go check on Jane and try to pry her out of the lab. We're going on another lunch field trip to the Thai place Bruce told us about."

She reaches over to pat Tony on the shoulder before turning on her heel and heading to the lab, Thor and Clint (Thai food, hell yes) following behind.

* * *

"That was a really great thing you did, Darce." Jane says to her much later that evening.

"Thanks Jane. I'm going to totally ruin it by saying I did it for selfish reasons. Those two idiots would totally have started World War III, sides would have been picked and they would have all ended up picking sides and fighting somewhere stupid, like a fucking cornfield or an empty airport in Germany or something ridiculous."

Jane indulges her friend and lets the subject drop, reaching over for the TV remote that's sitting on the table in front of them.

"Law and Order re-runs?"

"Sure, Janey"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! I'm sorry for the delay in posting, it's been a really busy few weeks which is also why this chapter is a little shorter. If I'm not posting weekly, please forgive me, I'm going to try and actually figure out a plot for this and outline the basics instead of winging it. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back and I hope you all enjoy this chapter!

Three weeks of regular day-to-day activity and no calls to Assemble feel sort of like a record with this crew and her kidnapping is a nice break in monotony.

To be totally honest, Darcy is surprised that that this is her very first kidnapping. She’s been in a ton of media pictures out with the Avengers, and even has a few pictures on her instagram.

At the very least she surprised that she and Jane have gotten off so easily, what with all the threats they’ve gotten the last few years.

She mentally shrugs, deciding that since Jane is back in the lab and won’t notice her missing for a while, she might as well see who is doing the kidnapping. The black bag/cloth thing over her head is kind of annoying (she hates breathing in her own hot mouth air) and the ties binding her wrists are digging in, but over all she’s been in way more uncomfortable situations in her long life. She’s also pretty sure that when she was still human she got beaten up once or twice.

The hour long ride in the back of the van is boring and Darcy is just starting to wonder if it’s even worth it to stay tied up when everything stops. She can hear people moving around for a minute before the door slides open and hands close around her arms to pull her out of the van.

Nobody speaks to her as she’s led forward and she’s trying to decide if she should go with the silent flow or unleash the sass when the bag is pulled off her head.

She’s standing in the lobby of what looks like an office building, surrounded by six beefy guys in all black and a smaller bald guy in a suit.

“Kudos on not going the abandoned warehouse route my friend. I can’t even begin to explain how cliché that would have been and my entire first kidnapping would have been ruined.”

The bald guy ignores her, but she sees one of the guards smirk a little.

Ha. Score one for the half-demon.

“Dr. Foster, thank you for joining us.”

“Come again?”

“Don’t worry, doctor. If you just cooperate with us, we’ll let you go.”

“Dude. You’re barking up the wrong tree. Like how do you even fuck up as bad as this?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not even a little bit Jane Foster. Not even on a really good day.”

“Come now Dr Foster, there’s no need for silly games.”

Darcy barks a laugh.

“Friend, this isn’t a game. Your stupid ass goons grabbed the entirely wrong person. I’m Jane’s intern-newly-promoted-to-assistant, you can check my back pocket, my wallet should be in there.”

There’s silence for a minute as the bald guy looks her over before jerking his head at one of the guards. The guy slides over to her and grabs onto the tip of her wallet, pulling it out of her pocket and handing it to baldy.

“How do you not even know what your intended target looks like? That’s just sad.” She snarks as the guy pulls out her drivers license followed by her SI employee ID.

Darcy can’t help but grin as he looks between both cards and her face for a few seconds before putting both cards back and rubbing his face.

“Well, Miss Lewis, it looks like you’ll be our guest instead of the good doctor. Intern did you say? I’m sure after all this time you must know something useful about Doctor Foster’s work. Take her to the holding room.”

She can’t help but cackle as two of the guards come back to her side and each grip an arm, dragging her forward through the lobby and into an elevator.

“You guys should really think about finding someone new to work for, someone who doesn’t send you out with a bare-bones description and no picture.”

There’s no answer, but she doesn’t expect one. At least these guys are professional, they ignore the rest of her sarcasm and snark the rest of the way to the room that they literally shove her into, causing her to stumble into the wall.

The door clicks shut behind them and Darcy takes a minute to take stock of the room. It looks like it might have been an office, but there’s a bed shoved into the corner (bolted to the floor) and a TV mounted on the wall higher than she can reach.

“Guess I’ll be here for a little while then.” She mutters to herself and plops onto the bed. It only takes a few seconds, but she decides to lay back and tries to relax.It's a semi-comfortable bed and as relaxing as it'll probably get until the TV suddenly comes to life a few minutes later with a ridiculous volume setting. There’s nothing but static screeching at her on it and she can’t help but laugh.

“Amateurs.” Tilting her head up she calls out, “You should never start this early. If you knew how to do your job you’d at least wait for a few hours to lull me into a false sense of security.”

Darcy drops her head back down on the pillow and promptly ignores the TV as the morons watching her try switching through different “channels” to get her to pay attention. She’s heard children throw temper tantrums that cause more psychological issues than this.

After a while the TV clicks off and she rolls her eyes as she wonders whats up next on the roster.

She doesn’t have to wonder long, soon enough she can hear gunshots in the distance, which is unexpected. Unless the goons have realized it would be a better idea to find competent employment and have killed baldy off. 

Honestly, someone could have at least read some sort of thriller novel to get a basic idea of torture.

The sound of gunfire echos around her little room again which is very interesting. She's been gone two hours max so no one at the Tower should even know she's gone yet and besides who would come in guns blazing? Natasha could, but she probably wouldn’t.

Swinging her feet to the floor, Darcy pulls herself upright and watches the door with her head tilted as if she can see through it if she looks hard enough (she can’t, x-ray vision isn’t something in her bag of tricks).

The gunshots get louder and closer around the same time there’s a distant explosion and by the time Bucky Barnes has kicked open the door of her little office cell Darcy’s grinning.

“My hero!” She calls in a faux southern belle voice and slaps the back of her hand against her forehead as dramatically as possible.

Her rescuer snorts. “You’re just lucky this place was on my to-do list. Also that I saw you getting tossed in the back of that van.”

“Oh yes, because whatever would I do all alone here? I never would have escaped by myself what with being a half-demon and all.”

There’s sarcasm mixed in with her pretend Southern Belle accent and Barnes snorts again.

“Alright madame self-rescuing princess. Let’s blow this place.”

“I have this odd feeling you mean that literally.”

He grins.

Darcy knows that she could just shut the door and turn it into a portal back to the Tower, but Barnes seems like a proud puppy who just learned a new trick and below that she can practically feel the rage, the pain of knowledge, simmering under the surface, so she follows him out.

At least now she knows that Jane’s on Hydra’s to capture list.

Ugh.

That’s going to be a problem soon, she’s sure.

Fantastic.

She makes sure to stick close to her very own hero in black as he makes his way to the exit, which means she notices that he glances back at her every time he has to drop a body or two.

It takes a lot of willpower not to roll her eyes at him.

This place doesn’t even make the top ten list of horrible things she’s seen. It might not even be in the top fifty, but she’d actually have to stop and think about that to know for sure.

Darcy follows him out of the building and a good distance away before they stop and he hands her a little cellphone.

“For once, I wish it really would be a big red button with ‘Do Not Push’ underneath it.” She sighs and pushes the send button on the phone so they can watch the office building collapse on itself.

“Alright my knight-in-black-Kevlar, let’s hit the road.”

Slipping her arm through his metal one (and ignoring how he flinches when she does) she turns them both around and waits for him to take the lead back to whatever kind of vehicle he has stashed away.

It turns out to be a motorcycle and Bucky Barnes is sure he’ll never forget the muttered, “Fuck yesss” that comes out of her mouth when Darcy sees it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to find me over on tumblr at ArtemisGarden, where I sometimes post snippets of fics and also a lot of fandom stuff.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, getting this chapter out was like pulling teeth at the beginning. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it and I'm sorry about the slow updating schedule. Real life has been crazy busy and this past Thursday was my birthday (I forgot) and we celebrated this weekend which is why I didn't post this chapter earlier.

Of course she could get herself home, they both know it, but Bucky wonders if Darcy Lewis is the type of demon to turn down a free ride on the back of a nice bike.

The answer turns out to be Fuck no.

Although she full on belly laughs when he tries to hand her a helmet, the nice riding jacket she takes, and doesn't even pretend that she's not showing off as she gets on the back of the bike.

"Never thought I'd see the day where getting tongue tied came from watching a dame get on the back of my bike and not the brainwashing in my head."

She snorts. "Please, you knew there would be a day. I'm just speeding up your timeline."

He shrugs and hesitates for a moment, before shaking his head (trying to shake away the melancholy) and climbs on the bike.

"Ready, doll?"

"Home, Barnes." Darcy says in an imperious voice, tilting her head so her nose is in the air. It works and she gets a chuckle out of him.

After that there's no more talking as he pushes the bike to speeds that would terrify most people, but she just smiles every time he glances back to check on her.

The trip back is obviously quicker than her adventure in the kidnapping van and soon enough Darcy finds herself directing Barnes to the underground garage. The gate rolls up with no hesitation and she watches him do a quick scan as he slowly pulls the bike into an open space.

In short order Bucky Barnes goes from scanning the garage to blinking as Darcy hops off the back of his bike and offers him a hand.

"C'mon you know you wanna take a peek and see what all the fuss is about."

Her hand doesn't waver as he stares at it for two full minutes before he decides to take it. He cuts the bike's engine and pockets the key before following her over to the corner where an elevator is already waiting with it's door open.

Bucky isn't really sure he's ready for this, but if he doesn't do it now he's sure he'll just end up putting it off forever. And it's a damn surprise that he's here with a dame who calls herself a demon instead of his best friend.

It's not at all how he thought things would go after he escaped from HYDRA, but Darcy seems to have a knack for turning things on their head. The elevator trip is quick and silent although he sees her mouthing at a camera mounted in the corner.

When she sees him looking, Darcy doesn't hesitate to smile and grab his hand (the left one again) which helps him relax a fraction.

The elevator slowing to a stop and the door sliding open rockets the tension back into his frame, but he's surprised the hallway in front of them is empty.

Darcy notices the expression on his face and she snorts again, leading him out of the elevator. "Were you expecting a baptism by fire? I wasn't about to bring you straight to the common room, even if it might be empty."

She stops at a door a few feet away from the elevator and puts her hand on a palm scanner the slides out of the wall.

"Doll," he's practically choking. "Did you bring me to your place?"

"Yep, home sweet home, mi casa es su casa, etc. etc." She stands aside inviting him in, shuts the door once he's clear, and makes for the couch. "Feel free to look around."

Bucky winces, but does a quick sweep anyway followed by a slower one where he takes the time to look around.

Darcy's place is comfortable, with a mishmash of furniture that doesn't match, but works together, and decorated in textures. She has big sheets (tapestries she tells him later) with different designs hanging on the walls, different kinds of faux fur rugs and knit blankets scattered around.

There's a sign on the door to the guestroom closet that proclaims it's a portal to hell and he thinks about it only briefly, before deciding he doesn't need to open the door and heads back into her living room.

A sound from the air vents above has a gun in his hand and pointed upward before he has time to process the noise.

"Not a good time, Bird Brain. Come back later... Please."

Nothing happens for a minute before the noise happens again, something he now realizes is a person shuffling away and out of hearing range.

"Don't worry about it, Clint likes to move around in the vents."

Bucky blinks before putting his gun away. "Most normal building vents are neither big enough for people nor strong enough to hold them up."

Darcy nods, "Yeah Tony had them re-done just so Clint would have a good hideaway after the Battle of New York. Around here you aren't the only one who's had to deal with brainwashing."

He processes this as she waves him into a chair so soft he practically melts into it.

"How do you feel about Steve, just Steve, coming over for dinner? Oh damn, I should let Jane know I was kidnapped and rescued so she can fill Tony in." The last part is said mostly to herself.

"I think I'm too comfortable to be nervous about it. Plus, I trust you. If you say it's just Steve well..."

"Jarvis, make it happen my friend."

"Of course, Miss Lewis."

The voice coming from nowhere has him mostly out of the chair in a ridiculous half-hearted way and he sinks back down into it when Darcy waves him down.

"Don't worry. Jarvis is the Tower's AI system, built by Tony. He's a good bro."

"Thank you, Miss Lewis."

"No flying cars, but talking buildings. The future is a hell of a place." Bucky mumbles as he finally lets the comfort of the chair pull him into a light doze.

"Welcome home, Bucky Barnes." Darcy whispers.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I'm really sorry I've been away so long, I just haven't really had the inspiration for where I want this fic to go. I hope you all enjoy this (super short) chapter and I'm going to try to update again soon!

Jarvis is a good bro.

Jarvis is a helpful bro.

Darcy wishes Jarvis could have a body because she wants to hug him and bake him ALL of the things.

Jarvis realized that the adorable text Darcy sent to Steve inviting him to dinner with a picture of herself and Bucky (who's head was lolling back on the chair) would send Steve sprinting up to Darcy's room(he took several whole flights practically in one go, much to Sam's annoyance),which would in turn wake Bucky all the way up.

When he pointed this out Darcy quickly restricted Steve's access to the entire floor because James Barnes needed some damn sleep.

It took Darcy 20 minutes of a whispered conversation in the bathroom to convince Steve to STOP YELLING THROUGH THE PHONE, DAMN!

Then, it took 2 minutes of normal conversation with Sam to get him on her side so he could explain to Steve that he had waited this long he could wait a few more hours.

Darcy finally hangs up her phone and heads back out to the living room where Bucky is softly snoring in her favorite chair. He's fully asleep now and she smiles at him before heading into the kitchen. She might as well make Steve's Ma's Spaghetti recipe since Steve is waiting. Again.

As she starts the prep she has visions of him actually sitting on the stairs glaring at the door and debating if he should knock it down. (She's isn't far off her assessment either.)

Bucky sleeps through the entire process of Darcy deciding to make the noodles from scratch too, making the sauce, and starting the bread. She's standing off to the side deciding the best way to wake him up when her phone pings with a text.

Jarvis is the BEST bro.

There's a text from Steve telling her she could probably shut the door to another room loudly and wait for a few minutes so Bucky has time to remember where he is.

That's exactly what she does and when she hears a muffled THUMP from the living room she puts a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.

He's standing upright looking at her bookshelf when Darcy comes out of the bathroom.

"Smells good."

"Thanks, Steve gave me the recipe."

Bucky nods at her before turning back to the books.

"You want me to let Steve in?"

"Can you keep him out?"

Darcy smirks at him, "He's been cooling his heels for a few hours now waiting for us."

The surprised look makes her smile again. "You needed your sleep and I needed time to make dinner." She says passing him and heading back into the kitchen.

A few minutes later he sticks his head around the corner.

"I guess you can let him in."

Darcy gives the order and there's an impatient knock on her door not even two minutes later. Rolling her eyes, she gives the okay for Jarvis to let Steve in. Bucky heads towards the little front hall to meet him and she can hear hushed words as she finishes up.

They take long enough that she sets the table, puts the plates out, and pulls out a few bottles of wine before Steve walks into the kitchen looking sheepish.

"Hey uh, Darcy would you mind if Buck and I--"

"Sit and eat the dinner I made you before sneaking off to do whatever it is you want to do? No I don't mind at all Steven."

Bucky huffs a laugh at the look on her face and doesn't complain as he drops into a chair and grabs a plate, Steve following his friend.

"That's what I thought."

 The meal passes mostly in silence, Steve is obviously anxious for the whole thing to be over so he could have his discussion with Bucky. Bucky is consumed with shoving as much food in his mouth as possible and making faces at Darcy across the table. 

'This is what I get for helping.' She thinks taking bigger and bigger gulps of her wine until an entire bottle is gone.

"Alright, this is going to kill me...again. Go be free, talk, hug, whatever. I'll totally take care of the dishes."

Steve practically jumps out of his chair, but Bucky stands slowly and cuffs his friend around the head.

"I know your a fact your Ma taught you manners, punk. Darcy, we appreciate you cooking for us, we don't mind cleaning up."

The look on Steve's face has her cackling and she retreats to the living room so they can at least continue their hushed conversation in private. Well, at least she doesn't have to do dishes, she hates dishes and she has totally made a few people clean house for her as payment in whatever bargain they'd stuck up.

Worth it.

She's changed into Pjs and laying on the couch with a book by the time they're finished, but Darcy get up makes the effort to walk them to the door.

Steve gives her an apologetic smile and a quick hug, Bucky, that asshole, also gives her a hug. A tighter hug and he presses a kiss to the top of her head before vanishing out the door.

Shit.

"Miss Lewis."

Shaking her head and blinking Darcy realizes she's been staring at the closed door for five minutes totally spaced out.

"Sorry J-money, whats-up?"

"It seems you have a few requests for company. Would you like me to convey your apologies, Miss Lewis?"

Jarvis is a good bro and he totally respects her privacy and her need to face plant into the couch while making a really ridiculous noise about being kissed on the head by Bucky Fucking Barnes.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo another chapter!! Warning some slight angst ahead, but ended with humor!

The transition of Bucky, and she's finally calling him Bucky not Barnes, at least in her head, moving into the tower doesn't go anything like what she imagined. Darcy forgets that a half demon she might be, but most of her existence has been a human one with added benefits.

What happened to James Barnes is almost beyond her scope of understanding. Almost, but not quite because she does understand some things, she's been to Hell after all and it might not entirely be the stuff of nightmares but, it can come close in some places. Places she's had plenty of experience in.

Of course she doesn't expect him to just "get over it" she knows that even though she took his triggers and even though he was on the run for a while there's still so much he has to work through.

She doesn't see any signs of it for a few weeks. Sometimes she hangs out with him or with him and Steve, watching movies, reading books, generally catching them up on the things they've missed. It doesn't happen much because Bucky still needs a lot of space and he doesn't really feel safe in the Tower, but everything is less when he's in Steve's suite.

And then one night she can't sleep. (Technically, if she really tried to bring out her demon half more she wouldn't need to sleep at all, but she likes to sleep so...)

Padding barefoot to the common kitchen Darcy's humming softly to herself with the intent of baking a batch of Clint's favorite extra chocolate chip cookies when she hears a noise.

Peering around the corner she sees him. Bucky is standing to one side of the island, near the fridge, surrounded by the shattered pieces of what was probably a cup totally frozen.

"James?" It's one of the few times she's used his given name, but the noise still must startle him, because quicker than she would think he's there, pinning her against the wall with his metal arm braced against her throat.

It's the closest Darcy's been to death in such a long, long time.

"Ce faci aici?" He barks at her and there's no familiarity in his eyes.

"Eu sunt diavolul. Pot merge unde vreau."

The answer, delivered so calmly, with such a blank look in the eyes, startles him.

"Eu sunt soldatul de iarnă, nu mă tem."

"S-ar putea să fii o fantomă, un soldat, dar eu sunt diavolul și tu mă vei lăsa să plec."

He removes his arm and backs a few steps away from her not breaking eye contact.

"This isn't what I had in mind for my fucking middle of the night trip to the kitchen."

Two sets of footsteps have them both turning to look down the hallway to see Steve and Natasha quickly walking up the hall.

Darcy almost laughs, because she's sure that Steve was probably running to get to them before he met up with Natasha, who was probably monitoring the whole situation via Jarvis. She sees Bucky tense out of the corner of her eye and the other two slow their approach accordingly, with Steve moving to the front.

"Everything okay, Bucky?" Steve asks, his eyes lingering on Darcy's neck where she's sure marks are already starting to form.

Bucky ignores him and has a brief conversation in Russian with Natasha that she can't follow and by the look on Steve's face he's lost as well.

"I'm so sorry, Darcy. He has nightmares sometimes and he forgets."

The repeated glances at her neck have Darcy reaching up to touch the spot where he had her pinned and the sting of pain makes her wince.

"It's okay, Steve." Her voice hasn't gotten any real inflection back yet and like Bucky, Steve startles at it, which causes Natasha and Bucky to look over at them.

"I'll be fine. Don't worry about me, just take him back to your place and make sure he's fine."

"Darcy?"

Ignoring the questioning tone from Natasha, she turns on her heel to walk away. Steve is so lucky she's knows him well enough, because the hand that suddenly clamps down on her shoulder to turn her around would be shattered if it belonged to anyone else.

Concerned blue eyes meet flat blue eyes and she can see him resist the urge to flinch again.

"Lăsați diavolul singur." The sound of Bucky speaking has Steve turning around quickly and Darcy uses that to escape down the hall back into her room. She changes quickly into clothes that she's not overly attached too before she heads into her guestroom and opens the door that leads to a portal.

 

Tony is sitting on the guest bed when she gets back and she has no idea how long she was gone. He recoils at the sight of her and grimaces.

"I thought dead people couldn't bleed?"

Looking him dead in the eye, Darcy gives him a smile that will probably be seared into his brain forever, "They don't."

Then, she keeps going and slams the door to the master bathroom behind herself.

"Shit."

* * *

Bucky comes to find her in the labs the next day and he too casts guilt ridden glances at her neck.

"I am so, so sorry, doll. I have no idea what happened." He isn't sure Darcy should be smiling at him right now (and something deep inside of him wonders if that many teeth are normal).

"Like I said to Steve, don't worry about it. I'll be fine, the soldier and I had a little chat and he let me go. No harm done."

"But--" He breaks off and looks at her neck again only for his eyes to fly back up in surprise as she gently takes his face in both hands

"James, it is okay. I am fine. You all seem to forget that I am still half-demon and I wasn't in any danger. I promise, I could have stopped you or run if I was scared or thought you were going to kill me. I just want to make sure you're okay."

There's silence for a few minutes before Bucky huffs a laugh and smirks at her. "Just fine, doll." He presses another kiss to her head as he lies and she manages not to roll her eyes as he beats a retreat out of the lab.

It's another two months before Bucky has an episode (at least one that she knows of) and Darcy's sitting on the common area balcony when she hears somethings off to the side. A quick glance shows her that Bucky is scaling the side of the building. 

When he draws level with her she realizes that it's not Bucky who's smirking with a predatory hint.

"Domnișoară Devil." Is all he says as he flips himself onto the ledge and continues his way up the side of the building towards the penthouse.

"Darce, you coming inside?" Jane calls before taking in the look on her friends face. "Everything okay?"

"I think the Winter Soldier was being flirty with me."

The bewildered look on her face sends Jane into hysterics and Darcy grumbles, "Some friend you are." before they both head back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always really enjoy fics where the Winter Soldier is another part of Bucky's personality. Sometimes they merge and sometimes they don't, I haven't decided which route I wanna take for this fic.
> 
> Translations via google translate:
> 
> Ce faci aici- What are you doing here?  
> Eu sunt diavolul. Pot merge unde vreau. - I am the Devil. I can go where I wish.  
> Eu sunt soldatul de iarnă, nu mă tem.- I am the Winter Soldier, I am not afraid.  
> S-ar putea să fii o fantomă, un soldat, dar eu sunt diavolul și tu mă vei lăsa să plec.- You might be a ghost, a soldier, but I am the Devil and you will let me go.  
> Lăsați diavolul singur- Leave the Devil alone.  
> Domnișoară Devil.- Miss Devil


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me again! I hope you all enjoy this update. I would have posted last week, but for those of you who follow my other stories you saw my ridiculous update to the Chronicles instead because I had an absurd and terrifying confrontation with a cockroach last Monday (followed by one flying at my face Tuesday and then Thursday at work a worm/larvae thing was crawling out of my sock even though it wasn't there when I put the sock on) so I lost my writing groove for a bit. It's back now and I hope you enjoy Bucky and the Soldier pining.

Bucky Barnes has (obviously) taken an interest in one Darcy Lewis, but he isn’t really sure what, if anything, he should do about it.

The Winter Soldier has never taken an interest in anyone before so he’s never had conflicting emotions or issues to contemplate. He clearly remembers the gobsmacked look the “Devil” gave him when he was scaling the side of Avenger’s tower on his way to the penthouse to pilfer Natalia’s good vodka. He wants to see more of that look on her face.

The solution is simple really.

Bucky Barnes isn’t entirely sure he agrees, and when he discusses this in temporary therapy (because “I don’t specialize in this shit man, we need a damn professional around here, but I also don’t want you to totally collapse so I’m willing to offer my skills for now” Sam thinks he should be talking to someone) Sam has to struggle to control himself.

Bucky is pretty sure he used to show off for Dames all the time (Steve chimes in with stories whenever possible) but not like this. The Soldier’s idea of showing off is to continue to scale the building so that he can flash smirks at the “Devil” whenever she’s outside and when indoors to show off the strength of his metal arm.

Bucky draws the line at bringing her tied up human offerings. Firstly, they’re not an animal (anymore), Jesus. Secondly, no Hydra agent even needs to be near these floors even if they are tied up in front of Darcy’s door with notes that she can throw them in her portal for science.

 

(For SCIENCE, Darcy!!! OH MY GOD JANE, NO it’s not happening.)

 

The Winter Soldier feels a flash of fear every time he remembers the “Devil’s” eyes that night; it’s a small flash of fear, but it’s more than he’s ever felt before and he thinks that he would be perfectly fine burning the world and laying the corpses at the “Devil’s” feet.

Luckily, Bucky is in charge most of the time and he only has to deal with the Soldier as an extra voice in his head.

Basically, this is how Darcy finds herself suddenly facing the attentions of The Winter Soldier (when Bucky has an episode) and sometimes adorably shy smiles from Bucky.

“He’s been standing there for five hours, Jane.”

“I know. You think he might want a snack?”

“A snaCK?” Darcy yelps as quietly as she can, turning to glare at her former-boss, who is struggling to contain herself. “Ugh, maybe I should go spend some time in Bruce’s lab. At least he appreciates having me around.”

Jane rolls her eyes at Darcy’s dramatics. “You know when Barnes is in one of these moods you can’t go to Bruce’s lab. All the standing still and staring intently creeps him out.”

“Ugh. Why can’t he go stand outside someone else’s room then?”

“He’s protecting you.” The voice absolutely does not make Darcy jump, because she is a centuries old being dammit.

When she turns around Natasha is leaning up against Darcy’s desk with that annoying not really a smirk on her face.

“How exactly do you know? Oh God, please don’t tell me you guys had a romance for the Soviet ages?”

Natasha wrinkles her nose at the suggestion. “Of course not, I was a little girl when Yasha was my teacher. He isn’t like that at all.”

Darcy flinches at the censure in Nat’s voice. “I knew that, I’m sorry. I just don’t really understand what’s going on and it’s freaking me out just a little.”

Natasha trades a look with Jane, all trace of seriousness gone from her face. “You don’t understand why the Winter Soldier is acting the way he is around you?”

“I literally just said that.”

Natasha laughs and exits the lab, pausing to speak to the Soldier briefly. He gives one last look into the lab and follows her to the elevator.

Darcy watches him leave and a small part of her relaxes. At least until she turns to look over at Jane, who has her arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

“Darcy Ann Lewis.”

“Oh my god, you know that’s not my middle name.”

Jane ignores her, “I’m pretty sure you know exactly what’s going on with Barnes.”

Groaning Darcy tilts her head forward into her hands and mumbles something.

"I can't hear youuu." Jane sing-songs.

"I haven't had a boyfriend in a few decades okay, I'm a little bit at a loss here. I've never dated a human who knows what I am."

Jane smirks triumphantly at her friend, before standing up.

"Oh look. Feelings. Let's go get some tequila to repress those."

Darcy can't help but laugh, even as she stands up and shoves Jane a little bit. "You know drinking doesn't chase the feelings away anymore."

"I'm counting on it."

* * *

Bucky groans as he regains awareness of himself and blinks. Damn, he must've slipped again.

The thought makes him want to hit something even though Sam said he's making a lot of progress. He has fewer slips now than ever (it's not like it's been happening for a long time anyway) and he doesn't have to look around for bodies which is always a bonus.

"Jarvis, buddy, what did I miss?"

"You stood guard outside Dr. Foster's lab for over five hours until Ms. Romanoff convinced you to re-locate to your current position."

Bucky takes a second to look around and he realizes he's holed up in one of Clint's nests in the combat simulation area. He's got a few weapons on his person but nothing surrounding him.

Huh.

He wonders what Natasha said to the Soldier to get him to leave Darcy alone.

_You don't really want to dig into that._

Bucky snorts and nods to himself. He remembers almost everything from his time training in the Red Room, but there are a few secrets Natasha and the Soldier have kept.

Sighing, Bucky swings himself down from the sniper nest and heads out of the training room to find Steve.

It's not that hard, since Steve is walking up the hallway towards him.

Bucky catches his friend and slings an arm around his shoulders.

"Hiya, punk. Wanna go raid the kitchen?"

Steve squints at him. "I know you're deflecting, but I'm pretty sure I could hear your stomach from the end of the hallway, so I'll let it go."

Bucky gives him a blinding grin, that only fades a little when Steve adds, "For now."

"Yeah, yeah. We can talk about my feelings and shit later. You think there's any of that pizza Stark ordered left?"

"I guess we'll find out."

They don't end up finding out.

As they approach the kitchen area they can hear voices and it sounds like all the gals- er women have gotten together. Rounding the corner they have time to see Pepper, Jane, Darcy, and Natasha sitting around the kitchen island with drinks, before Natasha notices them and sends them both quickly backwards with the force of her glare.

"How about some takeout instead?" Steve asks as they hightail it back to the elevator.

Bucky isn't sure what he ends up agreeing to, because he can't stop thinking of that quick glance he got at Darcy. She was sitting with her back to him, her head on one arm, with her other hand wrapped around her glass. She was asking what on earth she was going to do...

About him.

Shit.

That doesn't sound good and he paces around Steve's living room wondering if his obvious crush was turning Darcy off or worse- offending her.

He takes a deep breath before he finally flops onto Steve's couch a little harder than he needs too. He used to be so good at this and now he might be screwing everything up.

The thoughts are starting to spiral out of control when his phone pings.

_"Don't start worrying. You only heard part of the conversation."_

Jesus, either he's that obvious now or Nat's become psychic in recent years. Bucky snorts to himself and struggles to push his doubts aside as well as the Soldier's suggestions (although knives as presents might be something to think about later) when Steve hangs up with whatever deliver place he called and flips the TV on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is curious the "Devil" is the Soldier's pet name for Darcy. He doesn't think she's actually the Devil hence the quotations, but she's unknown and a little scary so he lets her have that nickname.


	12. Chapter 12

Natasha told Darcy that Steve and Bucky probably overheard a bit of their conversation so she spends the next two weeks going out of her way to be in the same room with him. Just because she's ignoring feelings doesn't mean she wants to stop hanging out with him.

She's pretty sure men are the most frustrating things ever, but both Pepper and Natasha assure her they're not and they probably think the same thing about women. Jane pipes up that it's common for whatever person is pining to think that the person they are pining for are complicated and gender has nothing to do with it.

"Humans are complicated." Darcy whines as she refills her glass and settles back into the couch. "Can we change the subject now? Girl's night can't always be about how big of a failboat I am."

Pepper laughs at the same time the penthouse lights go off.

"Damn, you guys are really showing me up on the creep factor around here."

"Jarvis?" Pepper asks and there's a tense moment of silence where no answer comes.

"I believe the panic room is in order ladies?" Natasha says as three cellphone flashlights come on at once. They're starting to move, with Natasha guarding the back and Pepper's free hand glowing with Extremis. Jane mumbles something soft about wishing she had some kind of power, Darcy looks up to say... something, anything but she doesn't know what because she sees a red dot in the middle of Jane's forehead and she doesn't remember anything except the powerful scream of **MINE** in her head.

She must make some kind of noise because Natasha looks over to see the dot on Jane at the same time something cracks glass and Natasha moves, maybe to grab Jane out of the way, but the bullet makes a wet thud type of noise as it makes impact with flesh.

Jane's head snaps around and her mouth drops.

Darcy's stepped the smallest bit to her right and she's looming over Jane, protecting her friend, the wet sounding thud having come from a bullet that's hit her shoulder.

The other's tense and look at Darcy, who has never been able to loom over anyone, as she straightens. She's at least four feet taller and there are splits in her forehead that open to allow two small black horns to push their way out.

"Darcy?"

Her head tilts in Natasha's direction to show she's listening, but she doesn't say anything, can't say anything because she doesn't think they'd like the sound of her voice in a demon form, doesn't think they'd like her red eyes that are ringed in black either.

"Darcy are you okay?" There's a small mixture of fear and concern in Natasha's voice even as she faces the same direction as Darcy looking for the sniper.

She makes a positive-sounding noise when another red dot appears on Pepper. Natasha moves quickly, grabbing Pepper and yanking Jane with her as they hit the floor.

Good, Natasha can take them to the panic room. She ignores them as she steps closer to the balcony door, slides it open and steps outside the same moment someone makes an impact from jumping down from the roof to land behind a cluster of plants out of sight of the near-by rooftops.

The figure straightens and the human part of Darcy's brain recognizes him as the Winter Soldier, her demon half recognizes him as "Mine...soon".

The Winter Soldier takes a quick second to study the "Devil" in her new form and he jerks the smallest bit as she smiles at him with more teeth than humans have, all of them sharp.

"Show me."

The voice is different, but the second he points out the location of two different sniper nests, she's gone. Not even five seconds later The Soldier hears the rapid gunfire that ends in screaming and he smiles before turning to head into the penthouse. Steve told him that he needed to check on the ladies while Stark works on fixing whatever is wrong with Jarvis and is keeping the penthouse locked down.

He knows that he didn't need to bother, he can see the little spider crouched in hiding, protecting the door to the panic room. He makes his way to the big doors that lead out to the hallway instead studying them for a moment, before getting to work on forcing them open.

 

Darcy steps out of the shadows onto the second roof and sees the sniper working quickly on getting his shit together to leave.

Not quick enough.

He hears her approach and fires from a small handgun she didn't see. This bullet joins the others and she looks down at her ruined torso with annoyance.

She keeps walking and he keeps firing until he's out of bullets and she's close enough to see the glow of his soul around him.

The sniper is moving for another weapon as she reaches one clawed hand out and rips a piece of his soul off to stuff in her mouth.

It's disgusting.

The man is frozen now as she reaches both hands out and tears the outline of his soul in half, that's when he screams, before she puts those pieces in her mouth too.

Still disgusting.

Darcy closes the distance between them and leans over the man, smiling at him as he falls comatose to the ground. Without his soul he'll be like this until the body dies. She leans over him and forces their eyes to connect so she can dig her way through his memories, but they're as useless as the other's.

Whoever put the hit out never showed themselves to these men, which is smart, but it's also annoying.

Taking one last look at the body, then the tower, Darcy walks to the rooftop access door and disappears into the black void that suddenly fills it when it opens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm not great at writing action type scenes which is why this chapter is so much shorter than the others. I'm hoping it still reads okay though!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me again! Two chapters in two days and this one is a smidge longer. If this is the first chapter you're seeing from me in a bit, please go back and read chapter 12!
> 
> A little return to Jane & Darcy.
> 
> Also a cameo for those that have been asking.

It takes over an hour for the shock to wear off, but with help from Natasha, Jane is able to sit with the rest of the team and piece everything together.

“So, she turned into a demon?” Sam asks, leaning back in his chair and looking around the table.

Jane’s brow furrowed as she answers. “I guess? I mean she got a lot taller, like I’d say at least nine feet tall, maybe closer to ten? And these two little horns popped out of her forehead, close to her hairline. They were kind of cute.” The last part is said with a small smile in the direction of Thor, who’d returned in the aftermath of the hit that went wrong.

Jane can tell he's torn between anger that someone would target her, annoyance that he wasn't around for the fight (or to protect his love), and pride that Darcy handled the situation.

“Huh.”

“She also stepped right into the path of a bullet to save Jane.”

“Had red eyes and more teeth than I think is possible for a human mouth too.” Steve, Thor, and Natasha are the only ones who don’t jump at Bucky’s sudden appearance in the doorway of the formal dining room of the penthouse.

Jane screws her face up again. “I can almost picture it.”

“So where is she?” Tony finally pipes up his gaze flitting around the room before dropping back to the tablet in front of him where he’s frantically flicking from one screen to the other looking over the Tower’s security.

* * *

“Well, Darcy. What did you expect to happen with those human friends you have?”

Darcy groans again, regretting the decision to go to her mom’s house to recover, like she regrets it every time she comes to visit her mother.

Her mom’s form hadn’t changed in the last few decades or so. She was weirdly obsessed with the 50’s housewives look and could have easily been an extra in that Stepford Wives movie.

“Mom, can you please just not right now?” She says as she pulls yet another bullet out of her stomach, her mother had refused to help beyond the bullet in her right shoulder, because the blood might have gotten on her new dress.

“Fine dear. You’re welcome to stay here for however long you need.” Her mother says as she glides out of the room.

Darcy grunts as she pulls the last bullet out and drops it in the bowl with the others. She grabs an extra t-shirt to drape over the wounds before flopping back onto her old bed and falling asleep.

* * *

When three days have gone by and there’s no word from Darcy, Jane finds herself drifting into her friends rooms followed closely by Thor.

“My love, do you believe this is truly a good idea?”

Jane stops in front of the guestroom closet door and tilts her head to look back at him.

“No.”

He nods just once and grips Mjolnir tighter in his arm as Jane reaches for the door. They brace themselves as she quickly twists the knob and swings it open.

There’s nothing beyond the door other than an empty closet and Jane sags into Thor’s waiting arms.

“She’ll come back.” He assures.

Jane doesn’t say anything as she lets him lead her out of Darcy’s suite and down the hall to their own.

* * *

Blinking the crud out of her eyes Darcy looks around for the source of the noise that woke her up.

Jalrath, one of the lesser demons bound to her mother’s house is standing in the doorway of her room.

“How long have I been out?”

“About a week.”

Darcy squints at the demon suspiciously. “And you’re here because?”

“Your mother sent me to make sure you hadn’t died.”

“Can I?”

Jalrath doesn’t answer the questions, just shrugs at her and leaves the room again.

Slowly sitting up she frowns at the t-shirt that’s now practically fused to her stomach by dried blood. Making a sound of distaste she peels the shirt off and drops it to the ground before eyeing the door to her bathroom, wondering if there’s any chance of getting a shower in actual water instead of that black sludge her mother favored a century ago.

It takes her almost an hour to convince herself to move and actually check the sink in the bathroom.

Despite being a brackish brown color, the stuff coming out of the tap is in fact water, much to Darcy’s relief and she turns the shower on. It never gets above a freezing temperature, but she ignores that in favor of washing the dried blood off her completely healed stomach and the grit out of her hair.

She’d slept for an entire week, who knows how long has passed in New York?

She should probably let everyone know she’s okay. Biting her lip, she wonders if she should even bother to go back at all.

* * *

“It’s been two months, do you think she’s going to come back?”

The sudden voice startles Jane into jerking around from where she’s been sitting and staring at Darcy’s empty desk.

It’s Natasha and from her position on the couch it’s clear she’s been there for a while watching Jane watch Darcy’s empty desk.

“Yes.” Jane’s voice is firm in it’s conviction, a conviction that for some reason only Bucky and the Soldier share.

Their one and only attempt to summon Darcy with a proper circle had been weeks ago. Some disgusting creature had appeared and said that it was not at liberty to disclose Darcy’s location, but was happy to strike a bargain on her behalf. It took one of Pepper’s shoes as payment for showing up and Pepper had tossed the remaining shoe in the trash with a grimace.

* * *

Darcy curses when she opens a portal and sees snow on the ground. She curses again when she opens another portal straight into her closet at the Tower and steps out. Jane is curled into a ball in her bed, clutching her phone and a pillow close. She must be running on fumes because even that small noise has an eye cracking open and Jane peers blearily around.

“Darce?”

“Yeah, Jane.”

“You’re back.”

“Well of course I’m back, all my stuff is here. Not to mention my favorite humans.”

Jane huffs at her and stretches out an arm. Darcy smiles and crawls into the bed beside her friend.

“You were gone for four months, Darcy.”

“I’m sorry, Jane-y. Inter-dimensional time keeping is a bitch.”

Jane huffs another laugh and cuddles closer to Darcy’s side.

“You saved me." Jane whispers as tears stream down her face.

Darcy chokes back the lump that's forming in her throat and smiles in the darkness.

“Course I did. You’re my best friend. I’ll always save you.”

They’re both dead asleep when Thor comes looking for Jane an hour later and he silently salutes Darcy with a fist crossed over his chest, before he heads back into the living room and carefully composes a text to James to let him know of Darcy’s return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the only time Darcy's mom will feature in the story, sorry everyone. Her obsession with the 50's housewife thing is because that's some of the best hunting she's had in a long time. Men specifically were making bargains left and right. Darcy's mom does take people's souls, but she usually trades them for better things back home in Hell.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaack! And here with a new chapter! Also everyone might want to re-read this fic from chapter 2 on because there were some decently heavy edits to most of the chapters, I've fixed some spelling and continuity errors that I found while re-reading myself and chapter two got a massive facelift. Hopefully this fic flows better now.

Jane isn’t the only one who’s been camping out in Darcy’s space. His lapses in the last four months have been far fewer, but whenever Bucky finds himself coming back to awareness he realizes that the Soldier has brought them back to Darcy’s guestroom to wait outside of the closet.

Bucky knows that Jane has some of her things scattered around Darcy’s bedroom and Jane knows he’s got a few of his own things (weapons mostly, but a few articles of clothing, and a first aid kit) stashed in the guestroom. Neither of them mention it to the other’s.

When he gets Thor’s text about Darcy being back he can practically feel the Soldier trying to push his way forward. The migraine he gets from keeping control lasts for hours.

He knows he needs to give Darcy some time and space to recover from whatever she’s been through the last few months. She waited (with Steve) for him to come in the least he can do is return the favor.

Flopping his head back onto Steve’s couch he lets his eyes fall shut and his mind drift back to seeing her on that balcony. She’d been furious and absolutely stunning and ridiculously tall with those cute little horns poking up out of her forehead.

Jane was worried that Darcy thought they were scared of her new form and that’s why she’d stayed away for so long, but really she hadn’t changed much.

Everyone had noticed her teeth at one point or the other (he hated to keep bringing it up, but how was is possible for so many of them to fit in her mouth when she looked angry?)and her eyes flared all the time.

Really the only surprise was her new height and the horns. It’s not like she’d changed colors or grown scales or anything.

Bucky is sure he can live with his girl occasionally growing tall and sharp.

His girl.

If she even wanted to be his. He’s not even sure when he’d managed to get over all of his fears of them being together.

Steve isn’t sure why he had any fears to begin with. (Bucky not-so-subtly likes to remind him that he was straight up scared about being friends with Darcy and what it would do to his soul. Steve usually ignores these remarks and punches him in the arm.)

“It’s not like she’s going to be in any danger, Buck. If Hydra targets her, hell if anyone targets her, because of you or any of us it’s not like she’s going to be helpless.”

“You look like you’re in some pretty deep thoughts over there.”

The sudden, soft voice causes him to jerk upwards, which is combined with an instinct he can’t get rid of, and he ends up sprawled on the floor with a gun in his hand.

Darcy blinks at him.

“I thought you were sleeping?”

Her head tilts to one side and she shrugs. “I was a few hours ago, but I’m not really tired so...” Her voice trails off and Bucky puts the gun back in it’s place under the table and stands up.

The silence is much more awkward than he’s used to with Darcy. He’s used to mile-a-minute chatter and jokes and smiles; none of which are happening right now.

There’s no effort at eye contact and she’s fidgeting, which is different.

“Listen, I just wanted to say that I totally understand if you don’t really want to hang around me anymore.”

His mouth drops open and his brow furrows in confusion.

“Because I’m dangerous.” Darcy explains at his look.

There’s a few seconds of silence where Bucky is trying to comprehend what’s going on before he lets loose a full on belly laugh. It wracks his whole frame so hard that he’s glad he is already sitting on the floor as he gasps for breath. He can see her face flicker from apprehension to confused amusement as she watches him and Bucky knows he must seem a little hysterical.

“S-sorry, it’s just, it’s--” He tries to stop laughing long enough to explain himself. “That’s exactly what I was worried about.”

“Huh?”

“I was worried you wouldn’t want to hang out or you know be around me because I’m dangerous.”

That makes her smile a little bit and while she doesn’t get closer she slides down to join him on the floor.

“I was worried that Hydra might use you to get to me or something equally as terrible.”

“Well...I guess that makes sense. Huh, it really seems like we have a lot more in common than we thought. Although I don’t have too many enemies left now.”

And isn’t that just the kind of statement he wants to explore a little bit more, the look in her eyes sends a little flare of heat down his spine and suddenly the humor is gone and he just wants.

He can see the second she notices the change in his demeanor and her eyes widen. It’s interesting, as dangerous and powerful as she is, Darcy seems ridiculously human and so small compared to him.

The Soldier is practically growling in the back of his mind and he’s resisting the urge to grab her and yank her onto his lap and she seems to almost know exactly what he’s thinking. She has a fully body shiver and Bucky is about to make some kind of a move when the door to Steve’s place opens and the man himself walks in.

“Darcy!”

“Steve-o!” There’s a tremor in her voice and this time Bucky does growl the smallest bit, causing Steve’s eyes to widen as he looks back and forth between them.

Darcy stands abruptly and there’s a mask that clicks into place as she throws her arms around Steve.

“Sorry about the disappearing act guys. Inter-dimensional time keeping is a serious bitch and I didn’t realize how much time was passing while I was at my mom’s house.”

Her mom’s house?

That snaps him back to himself and he finally stands up as well.

“Uh, your mom?”

Darcy blinks owlishly at Steve. “Yea? I’m like 100% sure I’ve mentioned her before.”

“Well, yes but I just assumed she wasn’t around anymore. I guess ‘cause it’s been so long since you were born and all.”

“Oh yeah I can totally get that. Nah my mom’s a full on demon, she’s like maybe in her late human 20’s by now? Something like that.” Darcy waves her hand in a vague gesture.

“Anyway, I’m just, you know, making the rounds. Telling everyone I’m back and alive all that fun stuff. I have it on good authority that Tony’s on a bender in his lab so I’m going to see if I can pull him out of it. See you guys around.”

With a quick wave she darts around Steve and out into the hall, pulling the door shut as she goes.

Bucky is looking thoughtfully at the door when Steve looks over at him and asks,“So, what exactly did I walk in on just now?”

“I’d like to know that too, pal.” Bucky claps Steve on the shoulder and leaves his friend in the living room looking bewildered as he heads out the front door too. Not after Darcy.

Not yet.

But boy does he really feel like hitting something instead of thinking about his feelings right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly, I still am not 100% sure where I'm taking this fic but I do know there won't be many chapters left. I also won't be updating as frequently as I was, but I also shouldn't be gone for as long as I was. While I was away, my husband got a work promotion and we bought a house! I'm super excited and we're in the process of moving with a friend's wedding also coming up. With all of that it might be a few weeks before I get another chapter, but again it won't be months and months.
> 
> As always thank you all for reading, leaving kudos, and commenting <3


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaaack

Welp. Running away from her friends to her mother's didn't work.

But, Darcy is pretty sure running away from this problem is totally the right idea. She runs right to the lab of Mr. Run or Throw Money at My Problems Until They Stop, himself. Tony looks up as she enters.

"Lewis! How long have you been back, did I already know you were back, how come no one mentioned you came back?"

She rolls her eyes and drops into one of the rolling chairs that've been abandoned in the middle of the floor.

"Haven't been back that long Tony. Slightly regretting my life choices, you know, the usual."

Tony squints at her and she suddenly remembers that not only is Tony the president of team run away from your issues, he's also a weird sexual tension bloodhound.

Shit.

This might have been a bad idea after all and she eyes the door to the lab.

"Right, right, right, and what life choices would those be exactly?"

"Going back to hide out at my mother's house, obviously."

Tony crosses his arms as he leans back against his cluttered desk. "Mhm. Just that one? Nothing else?"

Jesus, this was a terrible idea. She doesn't want to talk about the weirdness between her and Bucky. The whose the scarier monster contest they were apparently having in their heads. (Her obviously. She had centuries on him)

"Nothing I really want to talk about."

Tony purses her lips and stares at her for a few minutes more before he turns back to the bits and pieces scattered across the desk.

"So...visiting the parents huh?"

Darcy huffs a laugh. "Well, just my mom but yeah. Terrible decision."

He hums to show that he's still listening and hell venting about her mom is much more her speed than feelings right now so that's what she does.

She's pacing back and forth gesturing wildly and doesn't notice when Natasha comes in with Jane. By the time she's starting to wind down even Tony has stopped tinkering and is watching her talk.

She blinks like she's coming out of a trance and looks around.

"Your mom sounds...interesting." Jane offers with a slight grimace.

"Ha. That's a word for her yeah."

"So she basically looks like a Stepford Wife all the time?"

"Pretty much. The 50s and 60s were practically the highlight of the century for her." Darcy says and then notices the look on Natasha's face. "What?"

"I think, I might have attempted to kill your mother." Natasha says haltingly.

"Oh. Well yeah that happens." Darcy shrugs and totally misses Natasha's face because Tony asks another question.

"Wait so that thing that came when we tried to summon you?"

"Jalrath."

"Right, sure whatever. So that was what exactly?"

"He works for my mom. He's kind of a dick and doesn't really do well at making bargains and stuff so he just runs errands for my mom and her house."

"He took one of Pepper's shoes as payment."

"Gross, he's got a left shoe fetish though so I'm not really surprised."

The conversation tapers off after that weird revelation and Darcy finds herself walking with Jane back down to her lab.

"How'd it go?" Jane bumps her arm and wiggles her eyebrows.

"Ugh. It didn't really go anywhere. Steve came in and nothing really happened."

"But, you wanted stuff to happen?"

"Can't we just talk about what happened while I was gone?"

Jane rolls her eyes. "You might be able to convince Tony to leave it alone, but I'm your best friend. I'm 100% aware that you'd like to bang that like a screen door in a hurricane." She says before she notices that Darcy has stopped.

"Wha--" Then Jane follows Darcy's slightly mortified look and realizes that Bucky is frozen at the other end of the hall by the elevators. In the time it takes Jane to realize that he must also have ridiculous super hearing Darcy has decided to nope out of the situation and has reversed course back to Tony's lab. Probably to use the stairs he has to the penthouse that he thinks no one knows about.

Which means she 100% misses the slow, smug smile that graces Bucky's face as he saunters closer.

"Doc."

"Barnes. You won't be able to catch her you know. If she panics hard enough she'll just portal off this floor."

"I don't need to catch her...now."

Jane thinks over that logic for a second, nods, and continues to her lab. After all science waits for no woman. Or horny demon as the case may be.

* * *

Bucky Barnes, maybe not so surprisingly, is much more caught up on modern culture than Steve is. Mostly, because he wasn't frozen the entire time.

Sometimes he still needs to check up on a reference. Usually Darcy helps him with it, or he'll google it, but the face Clint makes when he repeats the phrase 'Bang like a screen door in a hurricane' tells him he was right on track and Steve complains about the smug look on his face for the rest of the night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! I'm so sorry for the delay in posting this chapter. Truly and honestly this Fic and I are not friends right now. I don't think I've ever had this much trouble writing anything before. I've had like 150 words written for months and then today during work I wrote this whole chapter from scratch. I really don't think there will be that many chapters left, but I'm still so thankful for everyone who had left kudos or comments and has had patience with me and this plotless ass fic.
> 
> You're all amazing <3


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